The stationery cupboard, where my colleagues and I get our stationery supplies from, did have pencil sharpeners in the past. I am not sure why there are none left, but I assume it is because most colleagues, especially most support staff, use Paper Mate Non-Stop pencils.

Paper Mate Non-Stop:

The Non-Stop is basically a SharpWriter with tip and eraser in black for the European market, or possibly for all markets outside North America. First released in 1984 the SharpWriter / Non-Stop is a disposable mechanical pencil, made in USA. You can even refill it, if you want. Unlike some other disposable mechanical pencils it is possible to refill leads when you remove the eraser. To advance the lead you twist the tip and – very positive for a cheap pencil – the lead is cushioned which should be good news for users who use more pressure when writing than I do.

The Eisen Model 402 in blue and yellow

Eisen:

But back to the pencil sharpeners… They were all the same type, had a cylinder shaped plastic container and were available in many colours. At the bottom of the plastic container you could see the wording “Made in Germany”. Some of the sharpeners had plain blades without any writing on them, some1 had “Made in Germany” and a lower case e with a crown on top written on the blade. After looking at different manufacturers’ web sites I found that this sharpener is Model 402 from Eisen2, a company manufacturing pencil sharpeners since 1921. Like nearly all other German manufacturers in the pencil and sharpener industry (e.g. Faber-Castell, Staedtler, Schwan Stabilo, Lyra, KUM or Möbius+Ruppert) Eisen is from Franconia, an area slightly smaller than Massachusetts. Other information and figures I found about Eisen is sometimes contradicting, but apparently they have 60 employees in their Franconian factory and produce 200 million steel blades annually. In 2003 Eisen established its own factory in Taicang3 near Shanghai, and production of the cheaper sharpeners was moved there while the production of more expensive sharpeners for cosmetic pencils is still taking place in the original factory in Baiersdorf. The factory in Baiersdorf is managed by Christian Eisen and the factory in Taicang by Stephan Eisen, both descendants of Christian Eisen, the founder of Eisen Metallwarenfabrik. Altogether, there are 150 employees in both factories, producing 60 – 80 million sharpeners annually.

Lyra, recently acquired by the FILA group, just started distributing Eisen sharpeners in the German-speaking countries, but I am not sure about the distribution of Eisen sharpeners in the rest of the world. They were available in the UK, probably through Impega4, a supplier of stationery for companies.

What is so special about the Model 402, you might ask. The answer is that it is a fantastic sharpener, somewhere between a traditional sharpener and a long point . Sharpening with the Eisen 402 produces a point as smooth as one produced by Möbius+Ruppert’s grenade or by KUM’s Automatic Long Point 2M. Even sharpening “difficult” pencils, like the Dong-A Fable, is no problem with the 402. When I tried to sharpen the Fable with a hardly used KUM 400-5L the lead broke every single time, with the Eisen 402 I managed to produce a great point first time trying, even though I have been using it irregularly for years and with the same blade.

Eisen 402 blade

I noticed that my yellow 402, which has an unmarked blade, is not as smooth as the blue one, which has the Eisen logo and Made in Germany written on the blade. It could be that the unmarked blades are worse, but the yellow 402 was in my office and saw much more use than its blue colleague, so I blame the slightly worse performance of the unmarked blade on the fact that the marked blade had not been used so often.

The Eisen 402 is certainly a great sharpener. It outperforms my KUM Streamline Chrome Canister Sharpener 460S and my KUM Long Point 400-5L. The only shame is that it seems to be difficult to get hold of an Eisen 402.

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I would like to thank Kent for the Dong-A Fable pencils used in the comparison of different sharpeners. Kent explained me that Dong-A is one of the oldest pencil manufacturers in Korea and that Fable is a relatively new model from Dong-A.

There is a video, produced for local TV stations, with more information about Eisen at Wirtschaftstreff Bayern. Unfortunately it is only available in German and the exact link is changing every month. The video with information about Eisen is from 23 October 2009.

8 thoughts on “Eisen 402”

Thank you for that very detailed review! I haven’t heard of Eisen before – before reading your post I could have sworn that this “e” with a crown is (or was) a brand of “Karstadt” in Germany (but I won’t rule out the possibility that I confuse something).

The blade seems to have a non-standard shape (which doesn’t come as a surprise if the angle is non-standard as well). Are there replacement blades available?

I was given a sharpener shaped like a rubbish skip (dumpster?) at a recycling exhibition. When I looked inside and saw the Eisen crown on the blade I thought I’d struck lucky and got something usable. Sadly, I was disappointed. It snaps off the point every time and with every type of pencil. I can only assume that Eisen supply blades to makers of inferior sharpeners. At least the blade came out so I have a spare for a better sharpener.

Strange. I am not sure whether the blades with the Eisen crown are old blades, as the same sharpener can have blades with and without the logo.

The point snapping of with different types of pencils sounds like either a problem with the blade or a problem with the clearance hole at the end of the cone.

All the Eisen 402 sharpeners I tried (also the ones from colleagues) work well, so I assume Eisen’s QC is doing a good job. Could the sharpener have been used (e.g. by the people at the exhibition) and the blade was dull?

The blade is good – it’s now in an an unnamed metal block sharpener marked “Italy” that I found somewhere and is doing fine service. I think the sharpener itself is the culprit – it didn’t look too well made.

The Papermate Non-Stops really are quite unglamorous pencils, but I do rather like them. They’re a touch on the soft side, but they write smoothly. I always find it a little amazing that they turn up in so many office stationery cabinets — they’re probably the last Made in USA item that’s still widely bought but budget-conscious companies. Even our local council supplies them to its staff.

They were recently on sale at Tesco: £2.50 for a 10-pack in bright colours (pink, purple, blue, and green). I didn’t like the new livery, but did like the price, so I stocked up. At 25p each, I can afford the occasional theft by a colleague and don’t need to guard them too jealously.